America versus the World (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

George Bush’s State of the Union address at the end of January was a rhetorical declaration of war on the world; an assertion that US interests are now paramount and woe betide anyone foolish enough to think otherwise.

Bush boldly announced that the “war on terror” was “only beginning” and announced an enormous hike in military spending. This year’s military budget is up $36 bn to $379 bn and next year the US war machine will receive an extra $48 bn, with a further $120 bn promised over the next five years, bringing the total spent on the military by 2007 to $ 2 trillion. To get some estimate of this level of spending it is worth noting that this year’s increase alone is higher than the joint military spending of Europe, and larger than China’s existing military budget. Though just how such an awe-inspiring arsenal of state of the arts weaponry is to stop 11 September type attacks on the USA is yet to be explained.

America has at last declared that the “war on terror” has replaced the threat of the “international communist conspiracy” and found in this the pretext to set the agenda for the coming century. The Bush administration has embedded its flag in what it believes is the moral high ground. From now on it is a war of good against evil – evil being anyone standing directly in the way of the US and its aspirations of global domination, with the “war on terrorism” allowing it to intervene anywhere and whenever and to deem who it likes a terrorist. Clearly this new “war” will involve countless military interventions with no regard whatsoever for international sensibilities.

There are now bogeymen under every rock and the world needs protecting from them. Bush identified an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union Address, pointing to the threat the world faced from North Korea, Iraq and Iran. Vice-President Dick Cheney would later remark that the US is considering military action against 50 countries and that this ongoing conflict could last 50 years, without seeming to question whether this would be sustainable.

Bush’s adviser Richard Perle commented: 

“This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there . . . if we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

All of this has naturally left political analysts wondering just who will be next. Somalia (on a key oil export route and with untapped oil deposits off its coast and with whom the US has a score to settle following the botched “Restore Hope” operation of a decade ago, which left thousands of innocents dead), or Yemen, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria or Libya? All harbour bogeymen whose existence sullies the notion of American hegemony. Any could be the next target for a war machine drunk with its recent victory in Afghanistan. And what a victory! – Osama bin Laden still not caught (the entire campaign was about catching him), 5 thousand civilians dead and 7 million facing starvation in refugee camps.

A key element in the US game plan for global hegemony is clearly control of the Caspian’s rich oil reserves – estimated to be able to produce 3.3 million gallons of crude oil per day and 4850 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year. Hence US military manoeuvring in the states surrounding Afghanistan and thus the attaching of the “bogeyman” label to any state perceived as standing in the way of these profits.

Already Kyrgistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are under US military domination and there are US military tent cities in 13 states surrounding Afghanistan, with the map of US bases mirroring the route of a possible oil pipeline which would take oil through Iran to the Indian ocean.

The pretext for the US invasion of Iraq would be Iraq’s refusal to agree to terms laid down by a US-led weapons inspectorate into the country, hence Bush’s assertion in his State of the Union Address that Iraq “continues to flaunt its hostility towards the US” and that “this is a regime that has something to hide from the civilised world.”

The above may sound like so much scare-mongering, but when it is considered the US now accounts for 40 percent of global military spending, that it spends more on its war machine than the next 19 states, that in the past year it has discarded numerous international treaties, including those pertaining to weapons control, that the space taken up by its military hardware covers an area the size of Sweden, that it has served notice on all countries opposing the notion of US hegemony that their days are numbered, we can’t but conclude that warfare will be as much a part of life in this century as the one we have just emerged from.

We have every reason to be fearful for the future of humanity. War is competition for profits (either via trade routes, mineral wealth, resources or areas of influence) writ large, and to safeguard its future profits, its control of world resources the world’s greatest and largest military power is accumulating an unimaginable array of weaponry, rolling up its sleeves and marching forward to stamp underfoot all it perceives as being a threat to its interests.

John Bissett

Interventions: Leaflets (2001)

Party News from the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party members have been present at ant-war demonstrations. Here are two examples of the leaflets we handed out there

Against war—against capitalism

It was good to hear of the anti-war demonstrations that took place recently in cities around the world, including Washington. It is heartening that many workers are refusing to accept this latest march towards bloodshed, despite the war propaganda blitzkrieg we have been subjected to.

However, we would say that slogans like “no more killing, no more war, no more violence any more” (though wholly admirable) do not go to the root of why war is such an ever-present feature of life. War does not occur because of “world leaders” being misguided or evil (though they may be these things), but because of the ruthless competition inherent to capitalism.

War is “business by other means” as they say. This war (whatever form it takes) will have its roots in the ongoing scramble for Middle East oil.

War is the inevitable result of world capitalism and the conflict between competing powers over markets, raw materials, trade routes and strategic territory – quite simply, war will not be banished from our lives until we have banished capitalism from our lives.

The companion parties of the World Socialist Movement have opposed every single war. We call on our fellow workers to reject and oppose all capitalist violence and bigotry, as we do. But it is also essential that our class understand the cause of war – the outdated capitalist system – and organise to abolish it.

www.worldsocialism.org

 

Another War – Another Tragedy For Humanity

The bombing of Afghanistan has begun. The alleged “war on terrorism” against America’s former islamic fundamentalist allies in Afghanistan is under way.

It will really be aimed at installing another regime more favourable to US and other “great powers” interests in a region strategically important with regards to oil (the reason for the previous financial and military support for the fundamentalists).

The cause of this war, like all others, is the profit system and its inherent vicious competition, which constantly finds expression in war and destruction. And like all wars, this war has nothing to do with the interests of the global working class.

The interests at stake are the interests of the competing national sections of the capitalist class and hence at odds with the real interests of us, the workers of the world, whose exploitation is the source of capitalist power and profit. The killing of our fellow human beings runs counter to the interests of humanity, full stop.

As ever, the companion parties of the World Socialist Movement call on our fellow workers to stand with us in opposing both this war, and the anti-human capitalist system which has spawned it. We must reject all attempts to divide the working class into national camps, whether our class enemies use the ideologies of “democracy” or of “islam”.

We simply cannot afford to repeat the carnage of the Twentieth Century in the Twenty First. The potential for a united world society based on the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole human community has existed for some time now. It is vital for the future of humanity that the useless, war-prone capitalist system is abolished.

How much more blood can we allow to be shed?

Life under capitalism: 50 Ways to Leave the System (1992)

From issue 8 of the World Socialist Review

How many ghosts can dance on the medal of honor?

David S. Rubitsky, 72, was denied the Medal of Honor—the U.S.’s highest combat decoration given to a wage-slave demented enough to slaughter fellow human beings on behalf of our capitalist masters.

The reason Mr. Rubitsky did not receive this medal of dubious distinction was that a military review board did not believe his tale of killing 500 Japanese wage-slaves in a single day during world war II. He asserts the real reason he was denied the “honor” has to do with anti-Semitic bigotry.

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B’rith supports David Rubitsky in trying to convince the world that he did indeed perform the near-miracle of slaughtering 500 fellow human beings in one whoop. They termed the military’s refusal of recognition “unconscionable.”

Unconscionable? Seeking praise for someone who claims to have killed 500 people is what’s really "unconscionable.” Only in our capitalist society, with its sick morality of pursuing profit over human needs—and, where necessary, at the expense of human needs—would a massacre qualify one for the status of hero. The fact that what passes for a human rights organization throws its weight behind rationalizing such atrocious behavior just goes to show how warped this society is, how morbid is its mentality.

In socialist society no one will get decorated with medals for being the “most ferocious one alive.” No markets to fight over, thus no wars. Only one world where we all have a common interest in each other’s well-being. Pathetic scenes of old men taking pride in killing fellow human beings will be a thing of the past. It is a future that is long overdue.

W. J. Lawrimore

Reagan's new bomb and how to fight it (1981)

From the September 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a time when governments are pleading with unemployed youths not to commit acts of violence on the streets, President Reagan has announced that the United States government intends to proceed with the manufacture of the neutron bomb.

The new weapon (officially known as an Enhanced Radiation Warhead) has the unique capacity to kill people while leaving property intact. By emitting an intense lethal pulse of neutron radiation, the weapon has the necessary radio-active potentiality to destroy urban populations, but leave the surrounding cities standing. According to US army field manual 100-5, published in July 1976, the new bomb is an effective killer:

A one kiliton neutron artillery shell can release about 8.000 rads. An active soldier suddenly exposed to 3,000 rads could become incapacitated within 3 to 5 minutes. He may recover to some degree within 45 minutes, but, due to vomiting, diarrhoea, and other radiation sickness symptoms, he would only be partially effective until he dies within about a week.

It is a tragic symbol of the perverse use of modern technology, which could otherwise be applied to feed the thirty million people who die of starvation each year. But what else should we expect under a social system where life has always had to come second to the needs of capital? Labour is cheap and replaceable; not so factories and machinery.

If there is another world war—which is always a distinct possibility so long as society is organised on the basis of a mad race for profits—it is unlikely that modern nuclear weapons will remain unused. Of course, even a third world war involving the conventional military strategy employed in Dresden in 1945 (which killed more people than the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki) would be far worse than anything experienced throughout most of the last two world wars. But in all probability; the next world war would involve the use of weapons of hundreds of times more destructive power than those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many military strategists, especially the Chinese, regard such a war as being inevitable. It is easy to be emotional about this prospect, but by any objective reckoning millions of human beings would perish if nuclear weapons were used in a future war. And despite dishonest and hopelessly inadequate government plans for civil defence, it is very likely indeed that those who survive such a holocaust will envy the dead.

It is assumed by some people that a third world war will never happen because governments will not want to see the level of destruction to their own property which such devastation would cause. It is argued that by pressing the button on hundreds of thousands of profit-producing wage slaves the capitalists will be killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Such an argument fails to recognise the anarchy of the capitalist system. Capitalists do not want to fight expensive and damaging wars but, when economic rivalries within the capitalist class intensify, war is the only way open to them.

If there is a third world war, the main concern of the capitalist class will be to get their industries back on to a profitable basis as soon as hostilities are over. It is quite possible that a nuclear war could be fought without the majority of the world’s population being killed. A nuclear war might take place in Europe, with millions perishing either side of the Iron Curtain. Foreseeing such a situation the American and Russian imperialists, both equally concerned with expanding their areas of territorial domination, both want to ensure that the areas hit by their weapons will be industrially operable once the war is over. This is the great value of the neutron bomb: having killed enough people to assure surrender, the factories and machinery would remain intact.

Despite the fact that many people have fallen for the pernicious government lies that bombs are a means of preserving peace and that so-called civil defence will protect them in the event of a third world war, an increasing number of working class people are opposed to the ever-increasing weapons of destruction. It is a pity that so much energy is going in support of reform bodies like CND which are wholly bankrupt of any real policies which can avert the threat of war.

To eradicate war and all of its grotesque weaponry requires more than moral indignation. Modern wars are fought under particular economic conditions and it is only when we eradicate those conditions that we can live without fear of war. In the capitalist system which exists throughout the world today in the misnamed Communist countries as much as anywhere—the ownership and control of the means of producing and distributing wealth is in the hands of a small minority. This minority—the capitalist class—is divided into competing blocs, each fighting one another over markets, raw materials and strategic positions. On the other hand the working class constitutes the vast majority of the population of the earth. Between us, we run society from top to bottom, but we do not own much of the social wealth. We do not have property to protect. We do not have overseas investments to fight about. We do not have working class enemies in Russia or China or America who we want to fight with. Fighting wars is never in the interest of the working class. It is a sacrifice of our own class interest for that of the owning class.

But CND, and all other bodies which urge us to protest about the symptoms of the system while leaving the disease intact, divert many well-intentioned workers from their real enemy which is not simply the existence of bombs, but the existence of the profit system. In The Guardian (5/8/81) a group of well-meaning reformists published a draft letter which all readers were asked to post to President Reagan. Its effective message was: ‘Please, Mr. Reagan, we don’t want to be blown up by nuclear weapons. Will you do something to make capitalism a bit safer for us?’ Such a futile plea leaves several questions unanswered: Who elected Reagan, Thatcher and the other leaders? Who is it that produces the armaments? Who provides the political consent which allows governments to pursue their militarist policies? The fact of the matter is that the working class does these things; the workers support capitalism every time there is an election; and bodies like CND openly claim that members of any party may join them because CND does not take a political stance. War will only be eradicated when the majority of the working class does take a political stance in favour of production for use and against the system which puts profits before need.

On the day BBC radio announced that Reagan had given the go-ahead to the neutron bomb, there was also a news item that bubonic plague had been detected in a wood rat in the vicinity of Reagan’s country retreat. The President’s men, it was reported, were out shooting wood rats in the area around the retreat so as to kill off the disease at its source. The working class can learn a lesson from this. The bubonic plague is a natural disease, but it can be eliminated by eliminating its source. Neutron bombs, nuclear fall-out and napalm are not natural diseases, but they too can only be remedied by removing the system which gives rise to them. Unless, of course, you are a skyscraper or a tank, in which case neutron bombs are not reported to be damaging to your health.

Steve Coleman

The Passing Show: As such (1961)

The Passing Show Column from the April 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

As such

The two American RB-47 airmen who were released by Russia recently after being shot down over the Barents Sea gave their own stories to reporters at an American air force base. They said that they had returned the fire of Russian fighter planes. One of the reporters recalled that previous American reports of the incident had claimed that the aircraft was unarmed. The airmen replied:

The aircraft, as such, was not armed with an offensive weapon of any sort. We carried two 20-millimetre automatic cannon which were mounted aft, pointing to the rear. This was a defensive weapon purely to protect us from attack from the rear. 

How automatic cannon, whether pointing up, down, forwards or sideways, can be anything else than offensive weapons was not made clear. And what exactly does “as such” mean in the first sentence? An aircraft carrying automatic cannon is armed as an aircraft, not as a submarine.

But merely to point out the absurdities of the airmen's statement would be to over-simplify the matter. For these airmen are only repeating what their masters, the American ruling class— along with every other ruling class—have always said. No country has a "Ministry of Attack”. No country produces "Offence Estimates". No country, to judge from its own propaganda machine, ever attacks another. In all wars, each country simply defends itself against the others: the enemy is always the aggressor. And if the hydrogen bomb is claimed as a "defensive" weapon, who can blame the two airmen for claiming that their automatic cannon were not offensive?

Jomo Kenyatta

Sir Patrick Renison. the Governor of Kenya, recently refused to release Jomo Kenyatta and gave two reasons for his decision. They were:

The political campaign for Kenyatta's release, “which has roused many emotions and which has not allowed divisions and personal fears a natural atmosphere in which to diminish. 

Kenyatta's refusal to “make any statement or reveal his thinking about the great issues which Kenya is facing." in spite of the fact that six Ministers, including three Africans, had visited him in August.

These reasons (given in the Times. 2-3-61) are remarkable. Leaving out the long words, the first one means simply that the Governor of Kenya isn’t going to release Kenyatta because the Kenya Africans have made it plain that they want him to be released. The Governor can hardly expect anyone to believe that he would have released Kenyatta if there hadn't been a campaign demanding it.

The second reason is even more extraordinary. Dictators have often put people in jail, or kept them in exile, because they have ”made statements” or "revealed their thinking" about public issues; this must be the first time a political leader has been kept in exile because he refused to take up a political stand

When thieves fall out

The Socialist position is straightforward. We are opposed to any attack on democratic freedoms, whether it is jailing for political reasons, restrictions on the right to vote, or any other weapon in the colonialists' armoury. But we are not blind to the real nature of the struggle in Kenya, it is the old struggle between land and capital. On the one side are in Kenya, it is the old struggle between capitalists, whether they are those who hope to establish full-scale industrial capitalism in Kenya, or those who have already established it in Great Britain. We welcome any extension of democracy in Kenya which this struggle between two rival propertied classes has produced or will produce. But we know that democracy is never safe in a capitalist society. That has been seen in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in Czechoslovakia and the rest. Only in a Socialist society will democracy be safe from overthrow.

Out of my way

An irate letter-writer in the Sunday Express recently told how he had parked his car beside a parking meter in accordance with the instructions on the meter, went to the theatre, and returned to find his car vanished.

Eventually, after very considerable frustration annoyance, and expense, I found it at one of the police yards miles away. 1 was ordered to pay £2 to recover it—which I refused to do. The only explanation I could get from the police was that I had committed the offence of being on the royal route to the cinema— although how I was expected to know this is beyond my power of reasoning.

The removal of one’s car. however, is only one of the minor inconveniences that may follow if one gets in the way of a royal progress. It could be much worse. In Katmandu, for the visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to Nepal, a new road was built from the airport to the royal guest house. It took 14.000 men over a month. It wasn't a question here of simply removing cars to make room for royalty: whole houses were bulldozed down. Even churches were not sacrosanct. "One temple was shifted 30 yards and worshippers one morning found the principal idol hanging on the end of a crane " (The Observer, 26-2-61). So much for the respect paid to religion when it conflicts with the convenience of the ruling class. Religion, of course, is maintained by ruling classes because it helps to keep the rest of us in our places. Perhaps it is naive for us to expect a ruling class to take its own propaganda too seriously.

Alwyn Edgar

Voice From The Back: The Futility Of Reformism (2009)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Futility Of Reformism

“One result of Ethiopia’s dreadful famine in 1984, when at least 1m starved to death, was the invention of celebrity activism on behalf of the world’s most miserable. Band Aid, then Live Aid, then even more sophisticated networking and the airing of starving children on television helped persuade rich countries’ governments to double aid to Africa as part of a wider set of promises to meet the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals laid out in 2000, the first of which is to ‘eradicate extreme poverty and hunger’ by 2018. Despite progress in setting up early-warning systems, better procurement methods and the rapid delivery of nutrition in the form of foil packets of plumpy nuts, the Horn of Africa has remained a hunger zone. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says the present drought is the worst there since 1984. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is usually slow to press the panic button, says it may be the tragedy of the decade. At least 17.5m people, the agencies reckon, may face starvation.” (Economist, 30 October) This is typical of the futility of a policy of reformism, many well-intentioned people spend an enormous amount of energy and time in trying to patch up capitalism only to find that instead of a million starving to death they now have over 17 million threatened with the same fate. The only way to solve this awful problem is to abolish the system that produces it and bring about world socialism.

The Cost Of War (1)

Many workers in the USA believe that with the election of a new president all their troubles are over, but the realities of capitalism will soon shatter that illusion. The US must compete in the world-wide struggle for markets and raw materials and to do so they need an immense military budget. How immense was recently revealed. “As President-elect Obama plans for his first budget early next year, the Pentagon is asking for a record amount, according to a senior Pentagon official. The official said the Pentagon’s baseline request being sent to the White House will be $524 billion for fiscal 2010, $9 billion more than last year’s $515 billion baseline request.” (CNN.com, 19 November)

The Cost Of War (2)

When governments count the cost of war they use dollars and pounds and figure what strategic gains or losses have been made, but workers have a much more brutal and realistic way of accounting. Here it is. “As of Monday, Nov. 17, 2008, at least 4,200 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,392 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers. The AP count is the same as the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EDT. The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.” (Associated Press, 17 November)

Dole Queue Dictionary

Everyday you can read about the mounting figures of unemployment. This used to be called “getting the sack”, “getting the bullet” or in Scotland getting “your jotters”, but we live in more sophisticated times so they sugarcoat it with terms like “being surplus to requirements” or some such business-speak. We think that Nokia must take the prize though. “Is your firm experiencing a ‘synergy-related headcount restructuring‘? This, probably the most ghastly euphemism yet encountered for mass sacking, has been invented by Nokia. Indeed, so proud of it are they that they repeat it, or different versions of it, nine times in a comparatively short announcement.” (Times, 22 November) As a worker I have been sacked, screwed and sent down the road but “headcount restructuring” sounds even more painful.

A Dog’s Life

Two recent news items illustrate how distorted human values have become inside capitalism. “A wealthy female surgeon has commissioned a £1.4 million kennel for her two Great Danes, next to her second home on the exclusive Lower Mill Estate, near Cirencester. The kennel has a Jacuzzi, a plasma screen TV, thermostatically controlled beds, a £150,000 music system and a security gate with retinal scanner.” (Times, 26 November) “Fears are being raised there could be a jump in the winter death toll. An Age Concern poll of 2,300 people found many over 60s were worried about being able to heat their homes because of soaring energy prices. And with a one of the coldest winters for some years predicted, the charity said the death toll could rise. It comes after figures for England and Wales suggested there was a 7% jump in extra deaths last year despite a relatively mild winter.” (BBC News, 27 November) A pampered life for dogs but no thermostatically controlled beds for shivering old workers, that is how capitalism operates.

Masters of War (2010)

From the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘You can fool all of the people some of the time … and some of the people all of the time … but …

The US occupation forces in Afghanistan have learned a particular lesson from the disaster that is Iraq, and they have learned it big time. In the first, largely contracted out war in history, US and other foreign civilians were brought in to carry out just about every task, from the mundane to those viewed as ‘front-line’. A direct consequence of this strategy was millions of unemployed and very disgruntled Iraqis, a large percentage of whom became active or passive supporters of the forces of insurgency/resistance against the perceived injustices of the occupation. In the corporate boardrooms of US War Machine Inc. the alarm bells were ringing; costs (dead bodies and bodies with bits missing) were eating into public opinion and support for the corporations’ products (perpetual war and war materials/services) was declining and, potentially, could severely impact their bottom lines. A slight shift in strategy was called for.

Afghanistan, in recent times, has never really been a nation state; it is an area of the world that is a patch-work of tribal fiefdoms that shift in and out of local alliances at the whim of chieftains or as balances of power dictate. In order for US and NATO forces to function, in what they like to call the ‘Battlespace’, they have to factor these tribal leaders and their shifting alliances into their planning. The logistics for any invader/occupier of this land are daunting in the extreme. It is a wild, unforgiving place peopled by proud, largely unconquered tribes with very long memories who do not take kindly to uninvited foreigners trying to lord it over them. Ameliorating some of that hostility would enable more focus on the ‘flagged-up’ enemy, al-Qa’ida and their Taliban associates.

As the conflict dragged on and soon to be president of US War Machine Inc. Senator Obama announced that, in his opinion, it was a ‘war of necessity’, the strategic planners came up with an ingenious ploy that would give gainful employment to Afghans, put money into their pockets and just might persuade them to view the occupiers of their lands in a sufficiently different light that they would stop shooting at or blowing up corporate assets and personnel. The name of this new strategy – ‘Host Nation Trucking’, and it works something like this . .

Take a gaggle of well connected, powerful and non-too-scrupulous ‘business men’ and award them six trucking contracts currently worth $2.2 billion. People like the Popal brothers, owners of the huge Watan Group, both convicted whilst in the US of dealing in heroin and cousins of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Or Hamed Wardek, owner of NCL Holdings and son of current Afghan defence minister, General Abdul Wardek. NCL includes such luminaries as ‘legendary former CIA case officer and clear-headed thinker and writer’ (says Senator John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 2009) Milton Beardon on its advisory board. Or Asia Security Group, owned by Hashmat Karzai, another relative of the president. (Aram Roston, ‘How the US Funds the Taliban’, The Nation, 30 November) These companies already have a well oiled model for doing business along the ancient trading routes and in the minefield that is present day Afghanistan – each has an armed ‘private security division’ and field agents who buy-off attacks by fractious warlords along any route. In this way US and NATO troops should get everything from ammunition to toilet paper supplied to even the their furthest-flung outposts with fewer inconvenient disruptions.

That was the theory behind the plan and in reality it mostly works pretty well. The US Defense Dept. throws huge quantities of dollars to the contractors, who in turn buy off the warlords who control those routes that pass through their territories. Many of these warlords are associated with the Taliban or are the local Taliban commanders, so extensive funding finds its way into Taliban coffers. Even the Taliban, who are the supreme warlords in control of the south of the country, are not immune from getting in on the action directly. Pay the premiums for their ‘insurance’ and it is sufficient for just two of their escorting ‘technicals’ to ensure the safe passage of any convoy through any stretch of hostile territory, which in reality is everywhere. Fail to pay up and the consequences are guaranteed to be devastating and deadly. Drivers can be picked off by snipers and rocket propelled grenades will blow the vehicles to pieces. One US owned firm, Four Horsemen International, has so far refused to pay and has tried to take on the Taliban with its own security teams; their convoys are attacked on almost every mission and the price in lives has been high. At some stage, no doubt, they will have to follow other security firms and do what they must in order to survive. An indication of premium rates can be gleaned from the following: per truck, per section of territory under a particular warlord = approx. $800, although it depends on what is being carried. Highway 1 from Kabul to Kandahar is about 300 kms, the local warlord, Commander Ruhullah, levies around $1,500 per truck and for military supplies this is the only route to the south, to Helmand and the Taliban heartland. The NCL company alone is billed $500,000 per month for ‘services’ rendered en-route through Ruhullah’s turf, an indication of the scale of business.

Throwing money at a problem to make it go away has been elevated to the level of a doctrine within the US military, which goes under the title of ‘Money as a Weapons System’. To give some perspective, the $2.2 billion, two-year effort to hire Afghani trucks and truckers represents around 10 percent of that country’s GDP and although firm figures are hard to come by it is estimated that between 10-20 percent is finding its way to the Taliban. The regime in Kabul has recently increased the wages of its police and army by $45 to around $125 per month, far less than the Taliban pays its fighters, so why work for that lot when the ‘firm’ down the road is offering a better deal? No surprise then that the effective strength of these two organisations is around half of the claimed 90,000 for the police and 95,000 for the army, or that the power and influence of the Taliban continues to grow. They have their very own milch cow with a seeming never-ending stream of greenbacks. US spin would have us believe that it is drugs money that funds the Taliban in direct opposition to their actions when in power. Under Taliban rule poppy/opium production was almost eliminated; by contrast, since the US invasion and the re-establishment of the warlords, production is at an historic high. None the less, this is the lie fed to the US public rather than revealing the truth which could well swing public opinion so strongly as to imperil the very profitable merry-go-round that is the conflict in Afghanistan. Better to keep the mushrooms in the dark than let them see the light of truth!

Step back for a moment and look at it this way; the US military, possibly the world’s ultimate ‘service provider’, is a gigantic consumer of goods and services. Its top people are highly paid executives who are guaranteed lucrative positions in supplying corporations when the time comes to move on. Working with their associates in government they benefit from continuing conflicts/wars that use up existing stockpiles/services which then need re-stocking from their appreciative suppliers. Prolonging the production run of any particular product or model is a well-proven policy for squeezing the last drop of profit from any venture. So it follows that in the context of modern, contracted-out warfare any strategy that strings out a conflict will mean more profits in the pockets of those corporations, organisations and their stock-holders who agree to play it by the rules of the capitalist system, and that includes Messrs. Taliban Associates Inc. In this lethal capitalist game, it is mostly the workers, the cannon-fodder on each side of any conflict who pay the supreme price; the elite, whether they wear the pin-stripped suits of corporate boardrooms or the black turbans of a Taliban leader, largely escape the extreme consequences of these policies.

The average US citizen thinks that it is ‘their’ money that’s paying for ‘their’ military to fight a war in Afghanistan that will protect ‘their’ homeland from another 9/11 or some crazed mullah with a suicide atomic bomb under his jacket. Fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. The media has convinced them that it is a price worth paying, and anyway, aren’t there tens of thousands of good US households that, directly or indirectly, depend on defence company salaries to pay the mortgage? If they ever wake up to the fact that it is also ‘their’ money that is paying for the munitions that kill their sons and daughters and is providing the Taliban with much of what it needs to carry on its campaign indefinitely, to the benefit and enrichment of all the stakeholders in the business of war and conflict, might they not get very angry? Might they not rise up against the Masters of War and their corrupt system? Don’t hold your breath!

‘You can fool some of the people . . .’ Was this saying concocted by some US president or other to convince his people that they are really too smart to have the wool pulled over their eyes by a system devised to enrich the few whilst keeping the majority in bondage? How else to explain the predatory economic ways of the world and the widespread apathy towards them in the so-called ‘world’s only superpower’ and its war-mongering allies?

'… you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.’

Oh, yeah!

Alan Fenn

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the January 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

A bottle of Scotch whisky billed as ‘the most sought-after’ in the world sold Saturday for almost 2.2 million pounds ($2.7 million), an auction record for a bottle of wine or spirits.

[Link.]

We often assume that religious beliefs are no different in kind from ordinary factual beliefs—that believing in the existence of God or of supernatural entities that hear our prayers is akin to believing that May comes before June. Neil Van Leeuwen shows that, in fact, these two forms of belief are strikingly different. Our brains do not process religious beliefs like they do beliefs concerning mundane reality; instead, empirical findings show that religious beliefs function like the imaginings that guide make-believe play.

[Link.]

Margot Friedländer, the 102-year-old Holocaust survivor, recently offered a few important words during an appearance on one of Germany’s most-watched political talk shows. ‘There is no Christian blood, no Muslim blood, no Jewish blood,’ she said. ‘”It is all human blood. We are all equal.’ And further: ‘I believe there is something good in every person. Take the good and forget the bad. It’s so easy to be human.’ Perhaps Greta Thunberg should have a sit-down with Friedländer. It might be a good start for getting back on the right track.

[Link.]

‘Queers for Palestine’ attempts to meld LGBT advocacy with Palestinian liberation, a juxtaposition that has precipitated a whirlwind of criticism and ridicule, since LGBT rights scarcely exist within the Muslim world; and the Palestinian territories are no exception. The slogan has been widely satirized. Variations like ‘Chickens for KFC’ and ‘Blacks for the KKK’” highlight its proponents’ basic lack of awareness of just how incompatible the values of the Western left are with those of the Islamic right they so readily champion.

[Link.]

They Survived Hell – but for Some, They’re Only a Means of Production

We were shocked to discover that mere days after being rescued, the migrant workers were pressured to return to work, including through threats to withhold their passports and their salaries. In some cases, they were required to return to work in the Gaza Envelope – near the killing fields they had just escaped.

[Link.]

The Pacific Institute, which regularly updates its Water Conflict Chronology, reported that at least 228 water conflicts were recorded in 2022—an 87 percent increase over 2021—driven in large part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces attacked water pipelines and supply systems in a number of Ukrainian cities after invading in February 2022, targeting water resources a total of 56 times since the war began .

[Link.]

A majority of American adults (72 percent) would not be willing to serve in the military were the U.S. to enter a major war, polling from Echelon Insights found, while public confidence in the armed forces also appears to be waning. It comes as all branches of the armed forces have struggled to meet their recruitment targets. Since 1987, the number of active-duty personnel has fallen by 39 percent.

[Link.]

Tiny (URL) Tips (2009)

The Tiny Tips column from the December 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard 

In the wake of the horrific events of the day, his captain is cool. He walks up to Massey and asks; “Are you doing all right, Staff Sergeant?” Massey responds: “No, sir. I am not doing O.K. Today was a bad day. We killed a lot of innocent civilians.”

Fully aware of the civilian carnage, his captain asserts: “No, today was a good day.” Relatives wailing, cars destroyed, blood all over the ground, Marines celebrating, civilians dead, and “it was good day”!:

[Link.]

Even as the financial system collapsed last year, and millions of investors lost billions of dollars, one unlikely investor was racking up historic profits: John Paulson, a hedge-fund manager in New York. His firm made $20 billion between 2007 and early 2009 by betting against the housing market and big financial companies. Mr. Paulson’s personal cut would amount to nearly $4 billion, or more than $10 million a day. That was more than the 2007 earnings of J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods combined:

[Link.]

Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers. Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace:

[Dead Link.]

Its ruler re-named the days of the week after himself and his mother. Opera, ballet and the circus are banned. To get a driving licence, citizens must sit an exam on the dead leader’s autobiography. Welcome to Turkmenistan:

[Link.]

When veterans die — from lack of health insurance More than 1.5 million vets don’t have it, and 2,200 vets die every year because of it :

[Link.]

“. . . We suggest that it will be pretty much like this in socialist society. Although it will be global as opposed to tribal, people will still live in small localised communities..” But some people I imagine will choose a clean, green high-rise city lifestyle instead:

[Link.]

Why are so many Americans now toying with socialism, in a country that created the most successful free market economic system in history and spent half of the last century fighting the heresy of Marx’s socialism?

[Dead Link.]

“Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can’t they see the Taliban?” ABDULLAH WASAY, an Afghan pharmacist:

[Link.]

Scraps from the Press (1932)

From the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The railway workers are promised a wage cut on the usual fantastic ground that the Companies were not working on a profitable basis. It is, therefore, interesting to read the notice in the Evening News (20th October) which states that owing to heavy over-subscription, the lists for Southern Railway £4,750,000 Debenture Stock issue have been closed. Evidently the capitalists consider the railways a profitable investment, which means that the railway workers are producing plenty of surplus value already. It is also an illustration that there is plenty of money available for investment—perhaps the credit cranks will make a note of it.

* * * *

The News Chronicle for October 3rd records the fact that Mr. Samuel Insull, a former United States electricity magnate, was at one time a director of 85 companies, chairman of 65, and president of 11. One wonders how much time per year (allowing for the periodical cruise, etc.) he was able to devote to each company, and also whether his absence was noticed when he was away. Perhaps if workers ponder a little over cases like this they will realize what little part the capitalists play in the actual running of industry.

The champions of “self-help” and the boosters of the “Great Man” theory appear to be having a thin time of late years. Hatry, Kreuger, Insull, and the rest have given their theories some nasty shocks. It is becoming almost a commonplace to learn, after one of the frequent financial crashes. that the “great man” at the centre was responsible. In fact, however the “great man” is made the scapegoat for their cowardly and fat-headed ideas.

* * * *

The following shows how sectional interests clash over Free Trade in Germany. Herr Krupp, head of Krupp’s works and president of the Federation of German Industries, along with Dr. Luther, president of the Reichsbank, have protested against the carrying out of the quota system by the Von Papen Cabinet. On the other hand, the agricultural interests are becoming alarmed lest the quota system should be suspended. Herr Hugo Stinnes has aligned himself with the agricultural interests in support of the restriction of imports.

The internecine warfare between capitalists over Protection and Free Trade may push into the background the movement of the German Fascists in the near future. And while German and English workers are suffering from the miseries arising out of their bondage to Capitalism, their self-appointed spokesman in the two countries will be shouting themselves hoarse over imports and exports—matters that are of real interest only to the capitalist.

* * * *

The Church struggles hard to keep up with the times—and keep its congregations and its magic. In these days of trials and troubles, with growing unemployment and restive workers, one of the Church’s principal spokesmen, Dr. Barnes, the Bishop of Birmingham, has made a portentous pronouncement. Speaking at Westminster Abbey on the 11th October, he said:

“Again, the social evil which has increased most disastrously in our times is gambling. In Ireland the Roman Church is all powerful and the Dublin hospital sweepstakes flourish.”

Perhaps if the noble Bishop were in the ranks of the unemployed he would hold other views of the nature of the social evil. Anyhow, his working-class parishioners could give him some information on the subject. But the Church has always been a prop of oppression, and its professional advocates can always be depended upon to find any cause but the real cause of the social evils suffered by the majority of the population.

* * * *

As the Armistice will shortly be celebrated, it is fitting to recall to mind “poor little Belgium” and all that was said about her sufferings during the Great War. Workers in England who fought in Belgium in the effort to end all wars may be interested to learn that war in Belgium did not end with the Armistice.

“BRUSSELS, Saturday. 

Troops were to-day sent to the coalfields, where an ugly situation arising out of the strike over wages led to battles with the police, who had been given orders to disperse gatherings.

At Charleroi, early this afternoon, three police and several strikers were injured in a collision. Two of the police were seriously hurt. At Peronnes, near Binche, fifteen strikers were slightly hurt when the police charged a crowd that had refused to disperse. The dispatch of troops followed a meeting between the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defence. A regiment from the Malines garrison has been sent to Mons, and one from the Arlon garrison to Charleroi.”—Reuter. Observer, July 9th.

Is comment on the above needed ?

* * * *

Under the Washington Treaty the tonnage of warships was restricted, and on this account the Treaty was boomed as a great step forward in disarmament and an indication of the pacific intentions of the participators. Ever since, however, each nation has been endeavouring to produce more effective and murderous implements with a reduced tonnage, and in this, America, the leading advocative of this “pacifism,” has had the most success, as witness their new and efficient battle cruisers.

The Evening News of the 17th July reports a further step forward in America. At the end of the War it was decided that an aeroplane carrier, to be effective, must be of at least 20,000 tons. Under the Washington Treaty, America was only allowed a total tonnage of 135,000 tons for aircraft carriers; in other words, they were allowed about seven of these vessels, the idea presumably being to reduce the number of these ships that might be built. The result, however, has merely been to set American designers the problem of obtaining all the assistance they needed from such ships within the stipulated 135,000 tons. As the Evening News puts it: —

“But America wants plane carriers on the Atlantic as well as the Pacific and also in the Far East, so that her strategy would be badly cramped by the small number of large ships allowed. It is this point, in addition to the financial side, that has American designers on their mettle.”

And the designers have risen to the occasion and produced a ship of 13,800 tons that “will be the last word in construction, carrying no fewer than 75 planes.” Another step towards the peace of the world !

Gilmac.

World View: Son of Star Wars (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rarely have Americans elected to office a president as impetuous, callous and as indifferent to the well-being of others as George W Bush, who even as a presidential candidate, signing more death warrants than any Governor in history, made no secret of his hawkish ambitions, determined to forge ahead with the “Son of Star Wars” National Missile Defence (NMB) system and to propel the world into another arms race and all the old cold war hostilities that accompany it and, indeed, perhaps signing the future death warrants of hundreds of millions.

The recent Pentagon report Proliferation: Threat and Response came as a godsend for the Bush camp, anxious to rationalise a planned $60 billion increase in defence spending, inclusive of investment in the NMD programme which would deploy thousands of air defence missiles to intercept intercontinental ballistic weapons fired by the proverbial “rogue states”.

The report would have it that the threat to mainland America is as great now as during the Cold War era and that apocalypse is just over the horizon, discerning a credible threat from North Korea within 10 years, Iran within 15 years and Iraq within 20 years. The report is critical of China for its continuing use of arms sales to “advance its strategic and economic interests”, but is silent on the US domination of the global arms market and its related hegemonic aspirations. Likewise, the amnesiacs who compiled the report lambast Iraq for its “pursuit of regional hegemony”, Syria for its excessive $1 billion defence budget (the US defence budget is currently $300 billion) and North Korea for its stockpiling of chemical weapons (when the US has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons on the planet). At every turn, it seems, there’s a rogue state just itching to lob a nuclear or biological weapon at the defender of global peace and democracy, and it is this warped logic that informs the hawkish stance in Washington. No mention is made of the fact that even without NMD, any state stupid enough to throw anything bigger than a grenade at the US would be bombed back into the Stone Age.

Nevertheless, it is talk that is demanding a $60 billion increase in US defence spending (which is actually China’s total military budget), and rhetoric that the cold warriors Bush has given cabinet posts to are more than familiar with. Once a critic of NMD, Colin Powell, of Gulf War fame (a man who came to prominence covering up the My Lai massacre and later up to his neck in the arms for hostages scandal and the illegal supplying of arms to the Contras) is now Secretary of State and the Pentagon’s top NMD salesperson. Other cabinet posts have gone to other Reaganite hawks such as Richard Armitage, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Candaleezza Rice. Bush’s choice for key cabinet posts alone should warn us there is some serious ass kicking is going to be done.

Whereas Bush sees NMD as a “constitutional and moral requisite” (he incidentally also believes humans and fish can coexist peacefully) US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld agrees that “it is in many respects a moral issue”, that NMD is essential to counter “the raw and random violence of the outlaw regime or the rogue state armed with missiles of mass destruction”, that NMD would make the US “less isolationist”, “less vulnerable and more prepared to help its allies”.

At a defence conference in Munich in early February, at which the implications of NMD were discussed, concern was raised that NMD would undoubtedly spark an arms race. Rumsfeld declared that NMD would not destroy arms control agreements including the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but later suggested the 1972 treaty was “ancient history”.

Arms race

Sergei Ivanov, head of the Russian National Security Council told the conference that “the destruction of the 1972 ABM Treaty will result in annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race”. As much, and more, was hinted at back in late 1999 when Republican hawks celebrated a Senate vote not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and announced their intention to scupper the 1972 ABM Treaty which outlawed Star Wars’ missiles systems capable of intercepting incoming missiles. For it was then that Russian Defence Minister Nikolai Mikolov, acknowledging Russia could not match US technology, declared Russia would simply deploy more warheads capable of overwhelming the US nuclear umbrella system.

In November last year the Kremlin announced plans to cut its number of men under arms by 360,000 and to shift the emphasis from nuclear weapons to conventional arms. This decision has since been shelved and will be reconsidered in March at the earliest. Meanwhile, in direct response to Washington’s announcement that the US intends to go through with the Son of Star Wars anti-missile programme, whatever shape this may be (air-based, sea-based, space-based) and regardless of any objections, Russia has announced it will seek an anti-US diplomatic alliance with China, North Korea and Iran.

As well as Russia, both India and China have expressed concern about the NMD, fearing it will very much provoke an arms race and force them to expand their own nuclear weapons programmes. Whist France and Germany are wholly opposed to NMD, the British government is currently playing its cards close to its chest. Though the MoD and the Foreign Office claim they are “not convinced of the merits” of NMD, Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon, asked if the US would be allowed to upgrade their early warning system at Fylingdales in Yorkshire replied: “We share of course US concerns about emerging threats. The US is our closest ally”.

For Tony Blair’s part, whilst it is felt he is bending towards the idea, keen to placate his US cronies, his government is under no pressure to make a decision for several months, which suits New Labour down to the ground. It should also be remembered that Blair is facing a general election this year so has no intentions of losing votes as a result of arguments with anti-nuclear protestors. It is, however, a safe bet that Blair will indeed see an election victory as his mandate to commit Britain to Bush’s wider game plan for global US domination.

It is a fair guess that there is more behind NMD than Washington lets on. For instance, the moment you begin installing a sophisticated missile defence shield is the moment your adversaries begin seeking ways around it. Whilst NMD may well take out the incoming missile, what of the biological or nuclear bomb in the suitcase or the suicide bomber?

A more likely explanation lies in the fears of the Republican right that the only discernible threat to US hegemony in the 21st Century will come from China as it develops into the economic giant many think it capable of—a serious challenger for US profits. What better way to curtail China’s economic ambitions than to compel it to channel more money into defence and away from other social programmes, economically hamstringing it? A similar tactic had been employed against the former Soviet Union during the Reagan administration in the late eighties, forcing state capitalism into an early grave as it found itself unable to meet the costly demands of an escalating arms race weighted heavily in the favour of the US.

It is poignantly ironic that George W Bush is preparing to raise the global security stakes when just over ten years ago his father George Bush, as president, announced to the world the benefits of the coming “peace dividend” in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the “collapse of communism”; a world in which there would no longer be the need for countries to invest heavily in military hardware now the bogeyman had been exorcised—that money was now to be used for health, education and other social programmes. But there again, George senior did announce at his inauguration that the 20th Century had been the “American Century” and that he’d be doing his damnedest to ensure the 21st was also an American century. So maybe George junior is simply following out his father’s promises. Ensuring the 21st century will also be ruled by force and woe betides any one silly enough to mess with US interests.

One thing is sure. The US is deadly serious about possible threats to its strategic and economic interests in the 21st century and has already toyed with a future confrontation with a possible rising superpower. In January, the US air force, along with 250 military and civilian “experts”, completed its first major war games in space at the Space Warfare Centre in Colorado, rehearsing a conflict set in 2017 between China and the US. It is no great leap of the imagination to envisage the projected winner.

As we have announced several times in the past year, if we are to prevent the 21st century becoming a more violent re-run of the 20th, that witnessed two world wars, the first use of nuclear weapons and many hundreds of smaller conflicts—all in the name of profit—it is essential we, the victims, the cannon fodder, the class that has the biggest price to pay to satisfy the whims of the mighty, begin to organise now; not tomorrow when NMD is in place, nor in years to come when the sirens are screaming. We as a class have suffered too much and have too much to lose to leave decisions regarding the future of our planet in the hands of group of arrogant, conceited and profit-crazed individuals. Let’s really organise to take their power away, before it is too late.

John Bissett

World View: Bombs and poverty on an American island (2000)

From the July 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vieques is in the news. The United States, it seems, just can’t stop bombing it. It’s the best place in the world (maybe the Universe?) for bombing, says the chief of US naval operations, Admiral Jay Johnson. “Vieques is an irreplaceable asset,” he claims.

Vieques, which is a 20-mile-long island eight miles east of Puerto Rico, is administratively part of Puerto Rico, and its inhabitants, like the Puerto Ricans, are American citizens although they cannot vote in Presidential elections. In 1941, the US navy appropriated more than two-thirds of the island’s 52 square miles, forcing the 9,300 local population to live on a small central strip between the naval bases at the east and west of the island. For almost 60 years, the navy has used Vieques for bomb and bombardment exercises for up to 200 days a year. Up to 12 months ago, only one local civilian had been killed by a missile; and operations were then suspended as protesters occupied beaches on the firing ranges littered with unexploded munitions. Since then, more protesters moved on to other sealed-off bomb sites and beaches, and dared the US authorities to bomb them or arrest them. On Thursday, 4 May, about 160 protesters were removed from the beaches, but were not arrested.

According to the Guardian (5 May),

“The islanders blame the navy for a cancer rate that is 27 percent higher than on the Puerto Rican mainland, stunted economic development, damage to the environment and to fishing grounds which, other than tourism and service industries, provide the local employment opportunities.”

The unemployment rate is 50 percent.

President Clinton has suggested a compromise by which the navy would drop dummy bombs until 2003, and then leave Vieques, in return for US investment of $40 million in the local economy. However, a referendum which many of the islanders consider to be a bribe, has been mooted whereby $50 million of Federal money would be added if the islanders support a return to live bombing.

The United States took possession of Puerto Rico and Vieques in 1898. According to Josué de Castro (Geography of Hunger), “it found a population which, if not exactly swimming in wealth and abundance, was far from the misery and hunger that it suffers in our times” (1952). Until the United States’s occupation, 75 percent of the arable land comprised smallholdings of about 12 acres, devoted mainly to subsistence crops. Following the occupation, the United States Military Census Commission noted that “this general ownership of farms has unquestionably had a great influence in producing the contented condition of the people”. The main industry, sugar, flourished. But, as de Castro points out: “Profound changes were soon brought about” in Puerto Rico.

The small growers were driven out, and were replaced by great, American-owned plantations; and “through the agency of United States’s capital, the sugar industry fell under monopolistic control of a small but powerful group of absentee owners”. American corporations also developed tobacco and coffee production—all for export to the American mainland. The Puerto Ricans were no longer able to feed themselves. And the island had to import 60 percent of its food, all of which was expensive, from the United States. Not surprisingly, for decades during the last century, undernourishment was prevalent and living conditions deteriorated. By 1950, the population of Puerto Rico had doubled (people suffering from malnutrition and dietary deficiencies always have high birth-rates). Of course the Americans built roads—and even luxury hotels and the like. Denis Healey MP, recalled that when he was Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1977, “President Ford invited us all to Puerto Rico . . . we met in a millionaires’ holiday camp on a palm fringed beach, and stayed in luxurious bungalows, travelling from one to another in electric buggies” (The Time of My Life).

Meanwhile, between 1945 and 1965, one-third of Puerto Rico’s population emigrated to mainland United States; and by 1980, two million Puerto Rican workers lived in America, with around three million remaining on the island, where at least conditions had improved somewhat.

In the early part of the last century, the reformist American Socialist Party, both among Puerto Ricans in New York, where most Puerto Rican immigrants lived and on the island itself, had considerable influence. It popularised trade unionism and, in a somewhat general form, class-struggle politics. In the 1930s, with the decline of the Socialist Party, the political scene came to be dominated by nationalist and Labor parties, together with the leftist People’s Democratic Party, in both the mainland and on the island. Puerto Rican nationalists supported an uprising on the island in 1950, when an attempt on President Truman’s life was made by members of the Nationalist Party. In the late 1960s, radical groups similar to the Black Panthers emerged; and, later, a Maoist party, the Organisation of Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers, was formed in Chicago and New York. On the island, another reformist and pro-nationalist Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) was founded in 1971, which had a strong base in the trade union movement. Unfortunately, however, no party as yet has been formed by Puerto Rican workers with the sole object of establishing socialism and rejecting nationalist and reformist programmes.

They have embraced the cul-de-sac of nationalism, to a large extent, because of the repressive and exploitative actions of both American-based corporations and the American state. The use of Vieques Island as a base by the CIA in the 1960s to infiltrate Cuba, and the more recent use of the island for bomb practice, has only exacerbated the situation. As a postscript, it is worth noting that the US navy “often lends Vieques to its allies, including Britain, for bombing exercises” (Guardian, 3 May). How thoughtful!

The US navy resumed bombing on Vieques on 8 May, using non-explosive ordnance. By the middle of May, 225 protesters had been removed from the site.

Peter E. Newell

News in Review: Unemployment figures (1963)

The News in Review column from the March 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment figures

The unemployment figures keep on rising and the government assure us that we have not seen the last of them yet.

Mr. Hare, the Minister of Labour, has blamed the weather for some of the unemployment and pleads that that is something which he cannot be expected to have foreseen.

The economic experts have sharpened their pencils and have swamped the government with their advice. The government, of course, has already plenty of its own experts with their schemes and advice; unemployment increases despite them.

Are the experts, then, so useless? Many of them have had a long and expensive education. They have access to all sorts of information which is supposed to help them in their planning to control capitalism.

It is fair to expect them to come up with something special when the problem demands it, as unemployment does.

Well, have they?

Consider, for one, the experts employed by The Guardian. We might have expected that newspaper, with its tradition of sometimes saying the unusual, to have some startling proposals on the out of work problem. And in a way that is what they did have. Here is what The Guardian's first leader proposed, among other similar suggestions, on January 25th:

Lastly, could the schools not be asked to take back all those pre-Christmas school-leavers who have still not found jobs? To lay on proper teaching might not be easy; but better that they should be in classrooms than waiting idly at home or on the street corners.

Read that again, slowly. Ask yourself whether sending back to school the youngsters who have only just left, whose parents are probably relying upon them to help the housekeeping budget, and for whom you know there are not enough teachers, is a solution to the unemployment problem—or even a sensible suggestion.

Then ask yourself if the experts can do anything about capitalism’s shortcomings. And wonder why you do not do something about them yourself.

The expense of cold weather

Most of us have had our grumble about the Arctic conditions which have had us in the grip since the end of last year. The weather itself is beyond anyone's control, but is there nothing that can be done about the effects of it?

Some of the electricity failures in the Big Freeze Up were caused by frozen insulators on the power lines. This problem could be avoided—and incidentally some lovely landscapes preserved—if the lines were carried underground. But the Central Electricity Generating Board claims that this would cost up to eighteen times more than hitching the lines up to pylons and would, therefore, not be worthwhile.

Some of the breakdowns and delays on the railways were the result of frozen points. This is something which could have been solved easily, in a number of ways long ago, but the railways were reluctant to invest in something which they might not want to use very often.

The efforts at clearing snowbound roads were simply pitiful. But the government reasons that there is no sense in keeping a lot of expensive snow clearing equipment which will probably lie idle for about eight years in every ten. And that seems to clinch the argument against having it.

Over here, in short, capitalism gambles on the weather; something it cannot do in other countries where extreme conditions happen more regularly. From the point of view of the British capitalist there is no sense in spending money preparing for something which is likely to come along very occasionally. That is why Britain is so often caught napping by severe cold or floods or some other vagary of the weather.

Anyway, it is only the working class who bear the brunt of the weather. It is only their houses which become draughty hell-holes in the winter. It is poor, working class pensioners who silently die of cold in their unheated rooms, cut off from the hurrying world outside,

It is the working class who have to face the added torture of the rush hour, on rail or road, in the icy spells.

Capitalism has always shown a ruthless concern for its own economic priorities. So can we expect it to spend money uneconomically to prevent such suffering? Not likely, we can't.

The Common Market

Well, it didn't come off.

Mr. Heath and his men came back defeated from Brussels and presented the British public with another bogy man who was yesterday’s friend. President de Gaulle is now the evil man of British capitalism.

The Beaverbrook press took a somewhat different view, implying hopefully that the British government had seen the light from the Express building and had themselves broken off the negotiations.

“And Now—Forward,” screamed the Express headlines. Forward, we may ask, to what? Whatever the Express, or the Government, or anyone else, has to offer can only be another of capitalism’s gambles.

When the British government decided, several years ago, against joining the European Common Market, they were gambling. When they decided that that gamble had failed they put their money on another—on the application to join Europe. They made it quite clear that that was a gamble, that they were not sure whether membership of the EEC would benefit them or not.

So it is with all capitalism's attempts to defeat its own problems.

President de Gaulle is gambling, now that Europe can unite as an independent capitalist power dominated by a Franco-German axis. But there have been plenty of other such gambles and plenty of other such pacts and many of them have failed even by capitalism's standards. There is no reason to assume that France and Germany, whatever their pact says, will not end up fighting one. another again.

Capitalism, in fact, is one big gamble. Since its fortunes hang on the tail of its unpredictable market, it can never be sure of what to do to secure its own interests.

The great tragedy is that the gambles are always paid off in working class lives and security.

Civil Disobedience

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, as it breaks up into its opposing factions, is displaying some typical symptoms of the dying reformist organisation.

One of the unilateralists’ arguments has been—and this applies especially to the Committee of 100—that nuclear weapons were such a threat to human society that anything was justified which helped to get rid of them.

Demonstrations and marches were justified. So was civil disobedience, like sitting down in the roadway. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, we were told, would be justified in forgetting about Socialism to campaign against the bomb. Recently, stirring up and exploiting social unrest at places like the LCC accommodation centres was justified on the same grounds.

This must have convinced many people that the unilateralists were prepared to go to any lengths to save us from nuclear annihilation.

It certainly seems to have convinced those soldiers who want to form an active CND group in the Services.

But the unilateralists will not touch this one with a barge-pole. Because what the soldiers are trying to do amounts to inciting troops to disaffection, and for that you can find yourself in jail for seven years.

That is too much for the campaigners, even for the reckless Committee of 100. So they have all officially disassociated themselves from any move which can be interpreted as stirring up disaffection in the Forces.

It was, of course, the unilateralists who first said that people should be prepared to face imprisonment in the cause of banning the bomb. But having urged this futile action on their followers, what sort of consistency is it which then shrinks from seven years in jail?

We know that the unilateralists are breaking up. Are they at the same time cooling down? Are they, as we said they might, becoming respectable?

Arms Budget

There are no surprises in the United States Budget for the coming year.

The American capitalist class expects to be spending a total of $98.8 billions during the twelve months up to June 30th, 1964, and of this well over half—$55.4 billions—will be spent on the armed forces and their weapons. In addition, $4.2 billions will go to space research and technology where, we fear, the weapons of the future will be conceived and designed.

This sort of expenditure has been rising steadily over the past few years; the USA now has an impressive nuclear arsenal to show for the money it has spent.

There are about 650 American bombers on a fifteen minute ground alert and more than 200 missiles ready to be fired from the ground. Apart from these, 114 missiles are in Polaris submarines, prowling beneath the seas.

Arms expenditure, then, is the first preoccupation of the Washington Budget just as it must be for any capitalist government which knows that its international interests are threatened by a rival.

Other things must take their place, lower down the queue. The USA will spend $0.3 billion on housing next year—less than in the current year—$5.6 billions on health, labour and welfare and $1.5 billion on education.

It is no coincidence that the very things which could make human life a little easier are the least likely to get any money spent on them, while the things which are meant to kill and destroy are lavished with funds.

Capitalism works that way.

Info War (2021)

Book Review from the July 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Sacking of Fallujah: A People’s History by Ross Caputi, Richard Nil, Donna Mulhearn. Massachusetts Press, 2019.

In 2016, the city of Fallujah in Iraq, with a population of around a third of a million, was utterly destroyed. It was the third time that it had been under sustained military assault as a consequence of the United States’ invasion of that country. This book looks not at the military tactical ‘war porn’ side of these pacifications, but at the human cost, and the ways in which power was inflicted on that city.

A large chunk of the book is spent defending the right of the population of Fallujah to take up arms in resistance to the invading forces. It also spends some time distancing them from the fighters of ISIS (according to the authors, although ISIS fighters were present for the third battle of Fallujah, they had interposed themselves in the conflict, rather than the Fallujans particularly seeking to join the cause of the Islamists).

Some of the details of how the US fought in Fallujah are instructive. The first battle of Fallujah was shaped by classic counter-insurgency problems. The US had laid siege to the city, creating the prospect of a humanitarian disaster (they also blamed insurgents for using the civilians as human shields, despite the fact that the US themselves had locked them in). Pictures beamed around the world meant the battle was one of propaganda as much as bullets.

This can be illustrated by the fact that as part of the second attack coalition forces took control of the hospital, because they considered the staff there to be ‘terrorist sympathisers’ who put out claims of casualty numbers that conflicted with the coalition’s own announcements. Uncontrolled journalists were barred from the zone. They were determined not to lose the image war a second time.

The book spends a great deal of time discussing information warfare, and the supposed firewall between the psyops and info war that US forces use abroad, as compared to the image management they use at home. Given that they specifically chose to treat independent journalists as a war enemy, it is interesting to note that that was precisely the tactic later adopted by the Trump regime as part of its propaganda operations. It is unlikely, to say the least, that the skills and techniques of info war are unlikely to be brought home, especially when the info warriors get demobbed. They note that one Associated Press photographer ended up being held for two years for unstated ‘security’ reasons.

The second battle involved intense bombardment and house to house fighting. Although civilians had been warned to leave, and many did, it’s thought around 50,000 remained, caught in the crossfire. The authors note that the US soldiers themselves didn’t know much about who they were fighting and why, they simply went into the meat grinder, where many died.

After the second battle, the city was in a ruined state, riven with resentment. The largely Sunni city soon became embroiled in the factional tensions the US (and to an extent Iran) were fomenting in Iraq as part of the ongoing struggle for control of the country post-invasion.

As US forces drew down, the Fallujans rebelled again, and this time their struggle was caught up in the battle against ISIS. It was the turn of the Iraqi government to lay siege to the city, and once again, civilians were forced out into camps, and bullets and bombs laid waste to whatever hadn’t been destroyed in previous assaults.

The clearances of the city, the disruption of services – water, electricity, medicine – were a health crisis within a war. The book deals also with the potential fact that the war has led to ongoing health crises, of high infant mortality, birth defects and cancers. The book is even-handed over the precise cause of these observed trends, but clear that they do exist, and must surely be chalked up to the horrors of modern war being inflicted on that delicate system that is modern urban living.

Pik Smeet